Christmas Island damaged by cyclone but lucky it wasn't worse

By Ben Collins, Cristy-Lee Macqueen, and Alex Hyman

Roofs were lifted and thousands of trees felled when Tropical Cyclone Gillian re-formed near Christmas Island. But the island was lucky that Gillian strengthened to a maximum category five system only after it passed.

After travelling from the Gulf of Carpentaria as a below-cyclone-intensity tropical low, Gillian reformed in time to give Christmas Island a rough weekend.

Christmas Island Administrator Jon Stanhope has been assessing the damage.

"The island did take a real battering over Saturday for 15 hours we had gale-force and above, winds," he says.

Some of the island's oldest buildings were amongst those damaged.

"We have a couple of stately homes here; heritage listed, very significant to the island. One of them, our major restaurant suffered significant damage; its roof was lifted off. That's had enormous implications for that family. They were rendered homeless and lost their business in the same event," says Mr Stanhope.

Damage was not restricted to historic buildings.

"Some significant damage to some other houses; a big tree fell on one house. Some other houses lost roofing," he says.

There are also concerns about the impact of Tropical Cyclone Gillian on the island's unique ecosystem.

"We've had enormous tree loss. Hundreds and hundreds of trees are down within the settled areas... Just looking into the jungle, the jungle's taken an enormous belting. I would think thousands of trees are down in the jungle," Mr Stanhope says.

Living with cyclones

Christmas Island resident Jahna Luke is a veteran of many cyclones, having lived in the Pilbara. On average the Pilbara sees ten times the number of impacts as Christmas Island. But Jahna was surprised by the intensity of Gillian on Christmas Island.

"To be honest I was actually really surprised at the ferocity of a cat one cyclone; it was a little bit unexpected," she says.

Duty Forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology's Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre, Rabi Rivett, says that Christmas Island was lucky not to have been harder hit. After tracking through the Indonesian Archipelago as a tropical low, Gillian re-formed into a cyclone as it turned south and approached Christmas Island. Within 24 hours the system went from category one to the highest intensity category five system.

"Basically the atmosphere just didn't let it intensify until it got closer to Christmas, but if it had then Christmas could have seen a lot stronger system," says Mr Rivett.

Tropical Cyclone Gillian is forecast to rapidly lose strength as it continues to move south. With no other cyclone activity likely in the next week, Mr Rivett says Gillian may be the last cyclone for this season.